Kit of Greenacre Farm eBook

“The circle,” he repeated, “the
circle. ’Ra in his circle shall guard Amenotaph.’
The secret lies in the circle, Kit. Do you suppose
it could mean the rim of the urn?”

Kit knelt beside him, following the inscription on
the outside of the urn carefully with her finger-tip,
the same as the Dean had done, and stopping when she
came to a small circle in black and red outline.

“Do you suppose Ra lives here, Uncle Cassius?”
she asked, poking at it thoughtfully. She peered
on the inner side at the corresponding spot to the
circle, and gave a little cry of excitement. There
was the faintest sign of a circle here also, like
one of the age cracks on Cousin Roxy’s antique
china. “See,” she cried. “When
you push on this side, the other gives a little bit.”

The Dean could not speak. He took the urn from
her over to the window and carefully examined the
inner circle through a microscope.

“Yes,” he said, fervently, “you
are perfectly right, my dear. The circle moves.
I think I shall have to take it to Washington on our
way east. I would not take the responsibility
of trying to remove it myself.”

“Oh, dear, it seems awful to have to wait so
long,” Kit exclaimed, regretfully. “You
know it seemed to me as if you could just press it
through with your thumb, like this.”

She had not intended pressing so hard, but merely
to show him what she meant, and lo, as Cousin Roxy
would have said, under the pressure of Kit’s
strong, young, capable thumb, the circle of Ra depressed
and pushed slowly through, just exactly as Kit told
the girls long afterwards, like when you plug a watermelon.
The Dean looked on in utter amazement, as Kit lifted
the urn and tested the inner section by shaking it.
Then she peered into the circular hole, about the
size of a quarter. The urn was fully two inches
thick, and by inserting her finger into the space she
found that it was made in two sections, with enough
room between for a place of concealment.

“There’s something in here like asbestos,
Uncle Cassius,” she began, and turning the urn
upside down, she tried shaking it, using a little pressure
on the circle to separate the two rims. Slowly
they gave, while the Dean hovered over her, cautioning
and directing the operation, until two complete urns
lay before them. But it was not these which the
Dean literally snatched at. It was the curious
cap-shaped mass which fell out in the form of a cone.
To Kit it appeared to be of no significance whatever,
but the Dean handled it as tenderly as a new-born infant,
and under his deft and tender touch it unrolled in
long scrolls of papyrus.

The Dean rose to his feet solemnly, and his voice
was hushed, as he said:

“Kit, you do not know what you have done.
Some day the significance of this occasion will recur
to you. All I can say is that you have lifted
the veil of the past, and revealed the secret of Amenotaph.”